Still Life

The challenge was set to create a still life image, any subject, so long as it was a still life. Not something I'm particularly interested in or have done much of before, I set my head to thinking about it.

I had visions of still life being bowls of fruit or vases of flowers, that sort of thing, but apparently even objects found outdoors can be classed as still life, presumably if they have been deliberately placed for some kind of artistic effect. That would certainly make the challenge a lot easier. There are many door knobs and rusty hinges, and goodness knows what else that could have been used, but, a challenge is a challenge and so I decided to try something new to me. It's not new to the art world and certainly not new to photography, but I don't really care about that. The idea was for me to push myself, my own boundaries, and surely that needs to be mastered first before any attempts to push the boundaries of photographic art!!

So, what to do?

I decided on the old classic of the whisky bottle and glass, with low warm light and minimal reflections. I thought the best way to achieve that would be to use a flash head pointing up underneath the bottle to light it up from within. Right. OK. Now how do I do that???

In the end, I had a glass dish laid across two high-backed leather dining chairs, with the flash head clamped underneath to point straight up. The stand had to be propped up on 3 lap trays (you know, the ones with bean bags underneath), and then my long dark blue dressing gown draped over the back of the chairs. There was way too much light spillage going on though, so eventually I ended up with a snoot on the flash head, two small black inserts from my lighting bag squeezed down between the chairs at front and back; two long black inserts propped up against books, stacked up either side of the glass dish; and a black jumper coiled around the bottle and the glass.

Great, that took care of the light spillage, but then I needed more light to show the label on the bottle. Cue second flash head, which was eventually found to have best results when bounced off the coving between the ceiling and the wall behind me. So, 2 hours and 27 attempts later, I finally got an image!!



Not perfect, I appreciate that, but for a first go at something I'm not especially interested in, it will have to do!

I really needed to play around with the light to highlight the outside of the bottle a bit better, but, being brutally honest, I couldn't be bothered any more!!! I'd spent enough time fiddling about already, it was nearly midnight and a challenge is only a real challenge if you have the desire to see it through completely. This was a little challenge that got me thinking, but wasn't worth putting a great deal more effort into. That's my excuse anyway :)

Rebecca,x

http://www.rtphotographics.co.uk/

rebecca@rtphotographics.co.uk